Thank you to everyone who joined the VONNE Conference last week. If you weren’t able to join us, here are the highlights of what happened.
North East Mayor announced first round of the Mayor’s Opportunity Fund
We were delighted to be joined by North East Mayor, Kim McGuinness who kicked off the conference by announcing the first round of the Mayors Opportunity Fund, which is now open to applications. The first round of funding, worth £225,000, will support community cohesion, recognising the social pressures felt in every corner of the region. The North East Combined Authority have partnered with Community Foundation Tyne & Wear and Northumberland and Point North to deliver the funding. Full details are available on their websites.
We facilitated a panel discussion on devolution and community cohesion
Following the Mayor’s speech, our Chief Executive welcomed everyone to the conference and started our panel discussion. We hosted sector experts who talked about how devolved power in the North East can be used to benefit communities through stronger regional responses across key themes including emergency responses, citizens, child poverty and the needs of women and girls. The aim was to give everyone a greater understanding and insight into what happened this summer and how all of us - devolved government, the VCSE sector, funders, and academics - can act to strengthen our communities so threatened and challenged by the summer riots.
Throughout the discussion, Claire Rogerson from Tyne & Wear Citizens talked about the need to weave trust and make politics (with a small ‘p’) more accessible by changing the language, and bringing everyone into the conversation.
Amanda Bailey from North East Child Poverty Commission talked about the need for devolution to expand opportunities for young people, who need it the most, and for structures across the whole of the North East to work together to make it as hard as possible for radicalisation to take place.
Robin Fry, Inclusive Economy Adviser at the North East Combined Authority acknowledged this and said they need to form trustful relationships across sectors, recognising where partners are better placed to deliver work successfully and making sure the structures are in place to do this.
Erin Parker-Leonard, Director of Policy and Advocacy received a round of applause when she emphasized the need to listen to women and people of the Global Majority, a point that was also raised by delegates commenting on the lack of representation in our panel. A comment that VONNE acknowledged and will strive to improve in future.
To conclude the conversation, Robyn Knox, Director of VCS Emergencies Partnership reminded everyone that we shouldn’t let the focus on cohesion peter out. She urged everyone to take action and make space to look outside of their organisation and current networks to see where new possibilities lie, saying, “Look up, look out, ask questions”.
Neil Denton, Professor in Practice at Durham University reiterated this saying as people, we often find it easy to define what we don’t want but much harder to define what we do. If we focussed on putting relationships first, what could we change and if we acknowledge who we feel nervous about connecting with and work to include them, will it enable us to do things differently and truly achieve cohesion?
We listened to grassroots organisations on their experience of the summer riots
The morning continued with our AGM and a short break before we welcomed Chief Executives from charities across the region to share stories of their work during and after the summer riots. They told us what community cohesion should look like at ground level, using their organisational experience of working with communities. Ngozi Cole spoke about the North East Anti-Racism Coalition and invited everyone to be a part of it. Duncan McAuley shared the findings of Action Foundation’s recent report, ‘Unwanted, like a stranger’ – Reflections on the 2024 riots. Nancy Pout, Yasmin Khan and Lesley Story all spoke about the huge impact the riots had on their staff and communities, all based in Tees Valley which was one of the hardest hit areas for racist violence.
We welcomed discussion in the room
All of the speakers emphasised the lasting impact that the violence has had on their communities and the amount of work that is still to be done in shaping an anti-racist region. To encourage discussion, Alba Shone, part of the Migrant and Refugee Organising team at Citizens UK and Beth Weedon, Project Officer at Space4 gave a taster of a Weaving Trust workshop. Beth posed a series of questions and delegates had 2 minutes to talk to someone they didn’t know in the room about the topic. It was a great way to start the important conversations that it’s so vital we continue if we want to create lasting community cohesion in the region.
We enjoyed live music
Finally, to close the conference we enjoyed live music from Samia Malik, activist and artist. Samia fuses, extends and subverts traditional South Asian and Western musical and literary forms to explore contemporary issues around identity, race and gender. She chose to perform two songs in Urdu and English.
We’ve had great feedback on the event and we hugely appreciate everyone who joined us as panellists, speakers and delegates. Looking forward to next year, VONNE wants to continue the discussions that started at the conference and continue to work as an instrument for the charity sector, supporting your voices and advocating for support from others so that we can all be better understood and appreciated.
"It's good to see VONNE thriving. It's important to have a strong regional VCSE body."